Tutorial: Easy Patriotic Spraypainted Doormat

My July DIY Challenge from Walmart was to do some patriotic decorating for the 4th of July. Since I had already purchased re-usuable bunting several years ago at Walmart, and always save those little flags they hand out at parades and such to stick into my planters, I didn’t really need much for the holiday. So I cruised around the internet and saw some cute doormats and thought-Hey! I can do that.

So here’s a patriotic decorating DIY that you still have time to whip up before the 4th of July:

1. Tape off everything except the center section. I used duct tape because it sticks to the very difficult to stick to fiber better than the blue stuff. Rather than using tons of tape (hey, that stuff can be expensive), I just used tape for the edge that had to stay down, then used newspaper for the rest.

2. Cut out your stars then tape them down to the mat in a pleasing pattern. I used some rolled up tape to help keep the tips down. Remember-you are not trying to seal every edge-just to get it to lay relatively flat so when you carefully spraypaint the part under it will stay natural.

note: I used card stock because I didn’t want the paint to bleed through the paper. You could also try contact paper, cutouts from cardboard or actual stencils.

3. Carefully spraypaint with your blue paint. You want to be spraying from straight above as much as possible. If you hit it at an angle you might wind up getting paint under the stars.

It’s probably going to take a couple of light passes to really get a blue color-the natural fiber of the mat does soak up the paint a little bit.

4. When it’s dry to the touch go ahead and peel up the stars and remove the tape.

note: This type of stenciling is called reverse or negative stenciling-since instead of having an open area for the shape that you are filling with color, you are putting down the shape and painting over it to leave a space that is empty of the color.

5. Let the mat dry an hour or more, then using tape and paper mask off the center part of the mat. Because my mat had black rubber around the outside I also masked that off-if yours is fiber all the way to the edge you can either mask off a strip for a natural colored border, or you can leave it open so it all turns red. It’s really just a design choice.

5. Paint the outside red. If necessary, enlist canine helper 😉

6. When dry to the touch, carefully peel up your tape.

That’s it! You now have a lovely patriotic doormat.

This same technique could be used in so many ways to make different holiday or stylistic doormats. I’m thinking of getting a plain coir doormat and doing a reverse stencil of a fancy “F” for Fowler to use year round out there. What do you think?

Disclosure: This is a sponsored review I am participating in with the Walmart Moms as part of the Walmart Moms DIY Challenger. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.

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About Frugal Upstate

I’m Jenn –an Upstate NY wife, mom, blogger and veteran. I talk very fast, read constantly, take on too much and make plenty of mistakes. I’m a real person, not perfection. I love to talk about the frugal lifestyle, “Village Homesteading”, living a more sustainable lifestyle and being prepared for all the curves life throws at you.

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